


Worth A Thousand Words

by MiChiAzalie



Series: Beyond A Fleeting Eternity [2]
Category: Fate/EXTRA
Genre: Angst and Feels, F/M, Inferiority Complex, Insecurities, Introspection, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Romance, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:54:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28272699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiChiAzalie/pseuds/MiChiAzalie
Summary: Sometimes Hakuno has to wonder why she has feelings for him in the first place. All of this, whatever this is, should be nothing but an error of logic, the end result of a series of meaningless coincidences that perhaps would have been better if they had never happened, but it's precisely moments just like this that she realizes why she can’t let him go; moments like this when he’s gentle with her, when she can get a glimpse of what lays underneath his veil as she lays against him, panting to catch their breath, and all those moments that they have shared together, exploring the fabricated mazes of this little clockwork world of hers.--Amidst a moment of bleak tranquility in the dark and quiet, Hakuno reflects not without a touch of bitterness on the fate that awaits the final victor of the Moon Cell and the many nights of life-altering firsts she’s had with Gilgamesh before she finally makes up her mind on her final wish. As she finds out, death is not what scares her the most.
Relationships: Gilgamesh | Archer/Kishinami Hakuno
Series: Beyond A Fleeting Eternity [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2071221
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	Worth A Thousand Words

Sometimes it’s so uncharacteristically tender, the way he touches her, that it leaves her second-guessing if she's just imagining things or not; he trails the tips of his fingers down her upper back, where her spine is, caresses her hips as he toys with the hem of her skirt, pushing her back against soft sheets, brushes his lips over hers, only to murmur something that sounds incoherent and indistinguishable before kissing a trail from her jaw down her collarbone.

It would always start like this; he would catch her eye when she’s too tired to pretend she’s not noticing that he’s staring back at her as well, and the corner of his mouth would quirk up into the ghost of a smirk. He’d say something flippant like he always does, careful not to put too much of himself in what he says, only to reach out to her and brush the back of his hand ever so fleetingly over her cheeks in either the most unguarded show of warmth she’s ever seen on him or the most accomplished caricature of that, and the dancing would start. Hands would be all over her body, their lips would find one another’s languidly at first, quickly turning into raw hunger until finally melting back into something akin to tenderness again-, their bodies would connect once more as she holds him perhaps a tad too tightly for comfort because an irrational part of her keeps worrying he will somehow disappear -but wouldn't it be actually the other way around? It is she wou will disappear for sure-, and her heart would clench in futile longing once again, just like right now.

He’s so proficient in what he does that she can’t help but succumb, even when there was a voice of reason in her head telling her she shouldn’t get attached to things that are bad for her, but she’s tired of fighting against Gilgamesh and his magnetic pull.

She had thought, initially, after their first life-altering first back when she thought for sure that offering herself to him _had_ to be the only way to save him because he was going to disappear before her very eyes, that he would be as arrogant and blunt and careless as he is on a normal basis. What she gets, though, is an odd combination of both worlds, as if he himself was torn between which one to go for -rough and commanding and hasty and unbearably _overwhelming_ , taking, taking and always _taking_ , but with a certain touch of reverence only he could possess, and it seems remarkable, really, that this is really happening, but it really, _really_ is; the incident from the last round broke a boundary so invisible she hadn’t even realized it existed, and now it has become somewhat of a routine, this push-pull game between them.

Had she been told she would be welcoming Gilgamesh in such a way, that she would want - _need_ \- to have him all that much closer because lonely nights were much more difficult to bear now that she's had a taste of what it truly feels not to be alone, wanting to reach for something that she knows is ill-advised for her, she would have probably felt at least slightly embarrassed about it, probably also mildly concerned about herself. However, she had already stopped caring altogether -she is over embarrassment now; her universe has now been reduced to Gilgamesh and the feel of his skin against hers in the quietness of her makeshift room on the Near Side, and there was little that she could do to back down from this -whatever all of this was- now.

In a lustful reverie, she starts grinding onto his clothed erection in search of quick relief, pressure mounting to an unbearable level as all she can think about is how much her uniform seems to be boycotting her all the time, her worst enemy for sure, and how hard and hot he is against her even through the barrier of clothing.

Gilgamesh gives out a low moan at the friction, and she seizes the moment to take his hands on hers and pull them up to rest upon her chest instead, where the offending blouse of her uniform is still getting in the way. She swipes her tongue over his bottom lip in a silent plea to which he obliges with another low groan of impatience. Intricate layers of clothing are haphazardly removed; fingers make such quick work of unclasping and removing undergarments that they are practically torn apart.

His lips move over her chest, kissing and licking a path to a nipple, sucking it until it becomes a hard peak in his mouth. She lets out small pleased sounds as the man above her draws wonderful, lazy circles around her breasts, his hands much smoother than one would imagine at first glance. The flushed skin of her exposed chest makes it clear that she was more than just slightly aroused.

At first, she was surprised to find that she liked being touched by Gilgamesh like this. She couldn’t remember at which point of this little arrangement she started to love the feel of those strangely tender caresses, or those shivering words that oozed out of him every now and then, little dirty nothings that made her moan inwardly, but the whys and wherefores really didn’t matter in the end -as of now she is in a haze that is mind-clouding enough that she doesn’t particularly care, letting herself instead get lost in the warmth and neediness of it as the blond takes his rightful place above her and leaves no room for other passing thoughts that did not revolve around how much she wants him to touch her everywhere.

Gilgamesh feels like a furnace as both their bodies press flush against each other, trying to get as much contact as was humanly possible, their lips finding one another again and again to steal away all that they could give, muffled sounds of pleasure spilling from between their lips. A film of perspiration clings to their heated skin as they move to the rhythm of a dance that was older than time.

It’s not long before she feels him spreading her legs apart, settling himself in the V between them. She chokes on a gasp when the glistening head of his cock penetrates her, sliding deeper and deeper within her until she’s taken him all, and they moan together as she lets him stretch her further open, clenching and tightening around the cock inside her. He lets out a string of curses at the sting of her nails digging against his back.

It isn’t as uncomfortable as it was the first time; she's relaxed and soaking and it’s all so _good_ –the way he stretches her to her limits, how her walls accommodate the thickness as he throbs and pulses inside her. She wraps her legs around him to keep him there. One of his hands comes to rest on her waist as he begins a steady thrusting pace of in and out that makes her moan and roll her eyes back in her head as she rocks back and forth from the force of his thrusts. The other hand roams over her body, following the curve of her breast, tracing around the soft, sensitive skin, tweaking at her nipples.

The smell of their shared lust fills the air around them, thick and invisible. Her world blurs for a moment when he grabs her hips to pull her further down onto his body. She moans a broken, wanton moan that Gilgamesh forces out of her throat with a sharp thrust of his hips, and she _takes_ it —takes him as he plunges deeper, harder, faster into her until she can't help but to sob, and he swallows it down as he lunges down to capture her lips in his, the sway of his lips against her own stark contrast against the hungry pace of his hips. Hakuno will take whatever he gives her until there is nothing left to take.

He keeps hitting the spot inside of her that has her feeling a familiar pressure building inside her. Out of instinct, she tries to reach down to rub her clit, but he notices and stops her; he takes her hand in his, their fingers interlacing before he has it pinned above her head.

“Don’t; keep them there,” he commands, staring down at her with eyes that are half-lidded and clouded by desire, before his hands clutch on her thighs, just behind the knee, removes them away from around his waist to press her further back and spread her wider, practically folding her in half -and oh, _fuck_ , how many times did she have to tell him she was not _that_ flexible? 

His hands dig and make red bruises into the soft skin of her thighs, holding her open as each relentless thrust hits her right into that spot that makes her shake and clench as she tries to rut against every thrust, movements uncoordinated by the clouding haze of her building pleasure.

Her legs tremble against his hold, and through the fog of her building lust, everything is washed away by a wave of pure carnal ecstasy as her insides pulse and clench with pleasure, finally finding solace in a climax that seems to go on and on as Gilgamesh gives it the rite of passage; his thrusts become erratic as he grunts in exertion, his movements becoming somewhat clumsy until she feels his cock stiffen inside of her, and with a long groan he’s filling her with everything he has.

They collapse in a sweaty heap of tangled limbs, Gilgamesh supporting his weight on one hand at the last minute so that she doesn’t end up being crushed by him before rolling over and settling besides her. As her breaths even out, he strokes her hair away from her forehead, tucks a curl behind one ear.

Sometimes Hakuno has to wonder why she has feelings for him in the first place. All of this, whatever this is, whatever it _means_ , should be nothing but an error of logic, the end result of a series of meaningless coincidences that perhaps would have been better if they had never happened at all, but it's precisely moments just like this that she realizes why she can’t let him go; moments like this when he’s oddly gentle with her, when she can get a glimpse of what lays underneath that veil of arrogance and disdain as they lay together, panting to catch their breath, and all those moments that they have shared together, exploring the fabricated mazes of this little clockwork world of hers.

But she guesses that nothing of that really matters, in the end.

After all, tomorrow -if time were to really matter on the Moon Cell-, all of this will come to a swift end.

She’s thought, many a times before, what sort of wish she would make when the time finally came to make a decision, but now that the moment has finally come to make such a decision, Hakuno is not so sure about what she really, truly wants to make with that wish of hers anymore.

The idea of welcoming death with open arms just to prove her worth was not something she desired in the slightest, but then, she wasn’t really human to begin with, so was it really right to wish for something for herself? Does she even have that right? Ever since she woke up, she’s never ever truly wanted something for herself other than the primal urge to _do anything to survive_ because the cold nothingness of death was too terrifying to even consider, but even that -to simply keep on living, or to live a live for herself- seems hollow for a wish, given how many people with much more meaningful wishes -with actual hopes and dreams- have lost their lives so that she could have a chance at extending her own. And now…

And now.

Now a feeling burns inside her, hot and overbearing and well out of her control, and some well-buried part of herself wants to use the all-knowing core of the Moon Automaton not to make ‘the right choice’, but to remain as she was, by Gilgamesh’s side, and there is no logic or reason behind it.

Doubt twists in her gut. She’s always pushed the need to come up with a wish for ‘later’. ‘Later’, when she returned back to the Near Side. Later, after she came victorious from the fifth round. Later, after the sixth round.

Later, always later, because she couldn’t afford to doubt herself not even for a second, because the moment a regret surfaced, the moment she hesitated-

‘Later’ has always taunted her with a million possibilities, and now all these possibilities stand before her, and there’s nowhere else to go now. Nowhere to hide.

But… if she's going to die anyway, then she'll be the one to decide how she's going to go.

_If I have to die no matter what, it will be on my own terms._

She does not want to die a pointless death, and she’s not willing to let the deaths of her friends be meaningless either.

This is what she’s decided.

"…Do be careful, mongrel; if you think any harder, the windows might actually break," Gilgamesh’s voice cuts through her musings and sends her back to reality. After getting a taste of clarity, no longer chasing after his own immediate climax, his tone is as sharp as it always is. He stares down at her with a look that is both mischievous and mildly intimidating, like a wolf circling around its prey. “Your span of attention seems to be lacking as of late, Hakuno. Getting cold feet again over whatever shall come to pass tomorrow? It might almost seem you have caught up on something you deem necessary to keep to yourself.”

His words upset her.

Perhaps it’s the fact that everything seems to be one big joke for him. Or perhaps it upsets her because at some level, he’s right; she is scared. Not necessarily scared of death, but… scared nonetheless.

She wonders, for a small fraction of a second, how long he’s known about this, about her doubts, and how long he’s been trying to persuade her into telling him something felt wrong within her without admitting it to either her or himself, but then she thinks it’s irrelevant.

"It's nothing like that," Hakuno tells him.

He quirks an eyebrow down at her in silent questioning, eyes still searching for something in her expression. For what, Hakuno doesn’t know, and while she tries to guess what it might be, she is belatedly reminded again that she doesn’t know the rules of this game, if there are rules to such a thing -she has no experience with what this means, whatever all this is.

"Hoh? No longer clinging to that foolish tangent of a thought of yours then? That you would gladly throw away one of the few pleasures you’ve come across in this miserable maze simply because you’ve deluded yourself into thinking it might end awry?” Gilgamesh asks in a hiss, and even that, too, is something new, because he sounds like he is trying to sound unaffected, but something akin to worry is almost breaking through the nonchalant façade regardless of how convincing a liar he is.

Hakuno holds a sharp eye-contact with her Servant’s red eyes.

"Are you suggesting I'm a coward, Gilgamesh?" though her tone has an edge to it, Gilgamesh remains undiscouraged by it. Rather, it only seems to egg him on.

“Ah, so the mouse _does_ turn,” his teeth flash in the darkness. It’s not a pleasant smile, but then again, most aren’t. He then makes an insouciant noise at her, and continues, “perhaps I have been hasty in my earlier judgement. Of course, were you that kind of woman, I wouldn’t have involved myself with the likes of you in the first place.” Then, as if upon further reflection, he adds, “however, you always appear to want to find a deeper meaning in your existence, paltry though the mere idea might be. Cease such foolishness; foolish mongrels like that always end up dead."

Despite herself, she has to stifle a laugh.

“So what should I do instead? Burn all the way down with you, instead?” with her trembling hands she pulls him down to her until their foreheads touch and their breaths mingle once again. “After all, since I am going to end in flame anyway, I might as well go all the way. Is this what you’re telling me?” she murmurs, brushing a sweaty strand of hair from his forehead. Surprisingly enough, he allows her hands to linger there, lets her fingertips slide over his temples, smoothing the crease in his brow with her thumbs.

For a moment she believes to have seen something flicker around his slitted pupils, but the light in the room is almost nonexistent and Gilgamesh is way too good at keeping her from seeing things she’s not supposed to see, things he doesn't want her to know.

He doesn’t say anything to that. No smug remark or witty comeback. He just tilts his head to catch her lips again, nibbling on her bottom lip until they’re swollen as one finger traces again around the flesh of her glistening slit. He kisses her just as expertly as he lies, but she cannot bring herself to care about that anymore -if he lies or if he doesn’t, that is all irrelevant now, because this feels too good to fight against.

They break away from each other only when the need for air takes precedence over the haze of their indiscriminate pleasure, the lingering kiss leaving her moist lips bruised and tingling.

“More -More of that,” she manages to tell him in a low rasp of longing.

A smirk was already present on his lips, and it only widens when he hears her plea.

“More, hm?” he breathes against her, looking at her with a mix of curiosity and want. He presses a finger against her nub of nerves, flicking it with quick strokes. “Such a greedy, selfish creature that you are. Do you really intend to keep the king at your beck and call like this, all night-long? That is ambitious, Hakuno, even for someone such as you.”

His husky voice echoes in the dimly lit room, and Hakuno can’t help the pathetic stutter that her treacherous heart makes against her chest. Perhaps she does; perhaps she wants him in her all night-long so that she doesn’t have to think of tomorrow and the inescapable fate that awaits her as the victor of the Holy Grail War, so that she can delude herself into thinking that at least she has him here, that at least she has him now, and perhaps that is why she leans her forehead to his again, and says, voice in tatters,

“Only because you’re mine, too.”

It should have been a taunt, but when the words finally come out of her mouth, she sounds broken because -gods _dammit_ \- it is as true as it also is the closest to a confession that she could afford to say without stumbling with words.

Gilgamesh just laughs in a performance of indifference -she only suspects that much because the faintest hint of breathlessness in his voice gives it away, shooting her a wrecked, devilish grin. “Is that so?” and then he continues, voice dropping to a whisper, breath so close, so warm. “But however tightly I grasp at you, Hakuno, is it not still you who is wrapped around my fingers?”

He does not wait for an answer, though; he simply allows one finger to slip inside of her, a bead of their mixed fluids leaking out of her as he slides it in. Hakuno makes a wordless sound of overwhelm, like an animal that has been wounded; the stretch of it inside of her feels like two of her own fingers and every push and pull makes her cry out softly, but luckily she still has her wits about herself to react accordingly, and she spreads her legs wider, allowing him better access, and another finger joins the first, until he is knuckles-deep within her. 

She feels incoherent in the agonizing pleasure she is swimming in, oversensitive with the slightest hint of soreness from their previous rounds. He leans in to bite down her neck, nibling a line down to her cleavage, then making a trail of kisses and bites down her chest and navel, the lingering touch of his lips leaving her skin aflame. His trail continues down her thighs, to which he comes to a sudden stop to settle in between them. She's wet again, she knows because she can feel herself dripping onto his fingers, can smell her lust in the humid air that hangs around them, can hear the wet noises that she’s making as she’s still scissored open, and the thought of his mouth on her only makes her wetter -this horrible deep-crushing need to have him close to her is almost paralyzing, too much to bear.

He kisses and nibbles on her inner thighs, his tongue tracing slow circles over the sensitive, soft skin there, oh so very easy to bruise, and then pauses for a moment again, leaning in only to exhale against her flesh, hot, as the constant drag of his fingers inside of her slows down to almost a halt.

She jolts, her whole nervous system short-circuiting, feels her core pulse again, waiting to be filled again by something, _anything_ , and immediately knows what he’s trying to accomplish; to push her into taking him by the hair and dragging him in.

“Please,” she says, giving in much to his satisfaction: her fingertips brush past his disheveled hair, and he lets out another teasing breath. “Please,” she says again.

He makes a sound at the back of his throat before he finally gets his mouth on her clit, eyes closing, and she isn’t even given the opportunity to properly process it all as she feels him flick his tongue over it and starts licking it up in rotation again and again and again; he licks over it roughly, insistently, matching the pace of his fingers until she’s throwing her head back, moans falling unrestrained from her parted lips. She can’t see his face, but she knows Gilgamesh is smirking against her skin as his tongue keeps digging harder, tracing dizzying strokes against her reddened clit.

Her eyes roll inside her head when he puts his whole mouth up to her clit and sucks on it. She spreads her legs farther apart out of raw instinct as she finds sweet solace once more in the way his lips fondle her clit, how his teeth graze the nub just barely to tease.

Her eyes shut closed in bliss. Everything feels so raw it _hurts_. It’s overwhelming and, at the same time, still not nearly enough.

“Yes - _more_ ,” she says again, gasping little noises coming out of her throat as he moves his fingers inside of her, working them in and out of her in rhythm with his lips until she can't stop gasping.

“You want it so badly… need it, don't you?” he pushes a third finger into her, rough, “-so open and unrestrained. Where have you been hiding all this time?” he murmurs to himself, and then sets his mouth back on her clit, sucking it hard enough to be almost painful.

She takes a sharp intake of breath as an overpowering tide of pleasure builds up and threatens to swallow her whole. She tightens her fingers in a fistful of his hair to keep him there.

“Yes,” she gasps incoherently, “yes, yes,” _belong to me. Belong to me more,_ a delirious part of her chants in a mantra, no longer sure if it’s coming outside of her head or from within.

Her vision shoots to white as she finally, _finally,_ peaks again, riding out an orgasm that has her breathing in short, rapid gasps as her legs twitch with strain.

And when she throws her head all the way back and breaks apart on his mouth, when she comes for the third time tonight, her stomach clenches with both euphoria and another feeling that she can't bring herself to explain.

This other feeling is new, and it's strange, and it's scary; like countless flowers of the reddest of reds blooming within her chest, taking roots around her heart as their pointed thorns spread wide -and she's not sure she likes it. She’s at a loss at what to do now. Gilgamesh, in his endless frivolity, did not come with an instruction’s manual. There was no protocol to follow with him, no rules, no restraint, no nothing -only but a constant sense of _not knowing_ , and the more time she spent with him, the more unbearable the feelings became.

He pulls his digits out of her, laps at the dripping fluids lingering there before climbing back up to her, takes her in his arm as he rolls them back, and in that instant, Hakuno wishes she could be the kind of person who could just lay with someone without feeling a thing, but that is not how she is.

Instead, the brunette just leans in to capture his lips again, and now, finally allows him to fall in her embrace.

Loving him happened before she could even realize it was happening; it’s wonderful and painful and completely overwhelming all at once, and perhaps she shouldn’t allow those blooms spread further, because she knows him, knows about tricks, but she loves him beyond logic and comprehension -like a poison plaguing her soul and tearing her apart, inexplicably, she loves him in every sense of the word, and though she has a feeling she might not want to know, she can’t help but wonder if he simply sees her as one of many, the 500+ wife to join with the rest of the naked bodies that glisten with sweat and blend together beneath him; another face in the crowd that he only covets for superficial reasons.

Of course, this is all stupid -she tries not to think too much of it, tries to focus on making every passing second count instead, but unfortunately this was sometimes all she could think about.

 _Was this how you lost yourself, BB?_ Hakuno asked her silently, deluding herself into thinking that she could still reach her from wherever she was now. _And if it was, if it really comes to this, what will I do now?_

Does it even matter now, though?

Even if there was some crazy possibility to have break free from the Moon Cell and have potential future with him, to belong to him as she wished to, Hakuno could never expect it to happen -and if it did, she didn’t expect it to last because, of course, out of everyone she's met throughout her journey, she had to harbor feelings for the man from whom she can’t even begin to tell which side of him was imposed and which wasn’t.

And so, the blooms keep sprouting and sprouting, the thorns around her heart forever tugging at her heartstrings, the wounds they make festering because there was no one to tend them.

Hakuno knows that wishing for anything other than what she already has here with him would only be cruel to herself. Instead, she was doomed to have her already ephemeral existence come to an end, and there is nothing that she or he can do to change that; she’s risen as the victor of the final round, she's won the war, and soon, when the artificial morning rises once again and they walk down the path to the Moon Automaton’s core, she will make her wish, and her bones will turn into seafoam and she will disappear.

There’s nowhere else to go other than just keep moving forward.

And as she lays on the bed, the sound of Gilgamesh’s steady heartbeat making her company in the deadly silence of this prefabricated night, she thinks with a touch of bitterness that this was always to be the fate of the victor of the Holy Grail War.

She could not save everyone; not Gatou, not Jinako, not Shinji, not Rani, not Sakura, not even Julius or Leo, and perhaps she’s even far too late to save Rin.

After all, she couldn’t even save herself.

She buries her face in his chest, trying memorize everything and anything that she can of him, hoping it will be enough of a memento to remember him by when she returns to being a string of meaningless code. Another realization goes through her as he brings his arms up to wrap around her, trailing soothing patterns around the small of her back, and Hakuno is so shocked by the tenderness of it that she can’t help her regrets from resurfacing.

_If I have to die no matter what, it will be on my own terms._

_…But more than anything else, I don't want to forget you._

The thought of it makes her cling even tighter to him, and he feels so impossibly warm, so alive against her, that it dulls the ache in her chest and the irrational fear clouding her senses enough that she can allow herself to forget everything that is wrong in the world if only for that moment.

* * *

At the end of the digital, cold mazes leading to the very depths of the Moon Cell, after vanquishing the man who wanted to wish for perpetual war on Earth, a stairway to the heavens opens. What lays ahead and beyond this decrepit mausoleum they stand on, Hakuno assumes, is the truth to everything, drawn in the embrace of dazzling lights.

The reason behind the loose ends of her flimsy, inexplicable existence, and the reason behind the meaningless deaths of everyone she’s come to grow attached to. All of that, right there, before her eyes, is finally made reachable.

Hakuno stares at the path of floating stairs with a diffident expression. If this thing is truly supposed to grant the winner salvation, what sort of salvation would it bestow upon her? Somewhere from the deepest corners of her mind, BB’s words resonate back to her - _a girl with no place to return to_.

In the quietly trembling air that hangs around them there is a pregnant silence that is only then broken by the voice of her Servant, who stands behind her as she takes one step closer to the stairway leading to the core.

“…As it seems, this is going to be the end soon. Don’t you have something you wish to say?”

When he says that, he doesn’t sound as smug as he would have gone for, but Hakuno still reads it as such anyway, both by force of habit and because she assumes his expression is one of complacency.

Still, she can’t stop herself from turning her gaze back to him just to see what sort of expression she can find there now, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary. Her Servant is still the same as always, the only telltale of something in the glass of his mask cracking is the guarded prudence in his stance, arms crossed in front of him, looking not quite as nonchalant as she knows he would have liked to appear.

They both stare at each other. Hakuno knows her own eyes must have been filled with uncertainty.

A brief beat of silence passes by again, and finally, she carefully forms an answer. She knows it's not the answer that would have satisfied him the most, but it is an answer nonetheless.

“…It’s just that – now that I stand here, I feel like I have finally made up my mind,” she says, swallowing a lump in her throat. “I finally know what I want to wish for. And… now that I have found reason in all of this, things don’t seem as intimidating. Since this is where we finally part, there is no need to bother yourself with any of this anymore, I guess. I'm- _glad_."

A shadow passes over his features, one that almost seems to say ‘ _don't dare speak on my behalf_ ’, but since it’s gone so suddenly that she can convince herself that it had merely been her imagination, she makes no further comment on that.

“…Thank you for dealing with my selfishness up until now, Gil.”

She thinks, for a stupid fraction of a second, that he looks as if he was about to tell her something. But the seconds pass by, and surprisingly -or unsurprisingly-, he only scoffs but says nothing else. His hands are balled into fists, and he’s standing straighter, but neither the rebuke nor the flippant comment she was expecting him to form does come out.

Hakuno doesn’t like this feeling, and the more she stares back at him, waiting for something, anything, the more she finds herself thinking _I really don't want to die_.

And Hakuno thought she could live -die?- with that. She thought that she could endure parting ways when the end finally came. She knew this would happen eventually, that she was ony a life that he took on a whim, and she thought it would be worth it, in the end, but now she wonders if she was wrong.

But she’s already come this far; it would be selfish and unfair to everyone else to run away now. Rin, now the sole survivor of this pointless death game, deserves to return to a place with a future -a future not tainted by endless pain and endless war. And so, Hakuno has to perform the last rites for that to happen -but instead of the suffering and cruelty she’s endured at the hands of this clockwork God, she decided that she would like to bestow a more gentle and peaceful death on 'it'. Perhaps it wasn’t the smartest way to go, but at the very least she felt it was right.

She can’t turn back now. Could Rin be able to get the answers that she couldn’t get in her time here? She will never have a way to know for sure, but Hakuno hopes she does.

In the end, he still says nothing, and so Hakuno bids her goodbyes and takes one step closer to the angelica cage that was the Moon Cell’s core.

* * *

Being inside the Moon Cell’s core feels like… floating. Surprising even herself, Hakuno recognizes what this is. She can feel it in her whole being. Being inside the Moon Cell’s core was a fall towards the edge of emptiness - _the Root_ , the voice of the all-knowing machine supplies her with that knowledge, echoing inside her mind.

 _It is wrong. It is wrong, it is wrong,_ another voice in her head tells her, pleading her to fight back, but it soon quiets down as the feeling rises and rises inside her chest until she feels weightless and eternal.

Then there is red.

So much red.

Her vision goes red, follow by the feeling of clawing hands reaching out for her, digging into her mind, into her limbs and into her chest, and then unbearable agony pierces through her body, digging straight through her nerve-endings, unyielding, unrelenting.

However, she cannot move. She can only float there and take the pain as her existence is being picked apart. It hurts so much to breathe -she tries to snatch handfuls of air, but they only make her choke.

Countless voices swarm all around her, coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once, trying to carry her away deeper down and devour the very core of her being.

She feels… very cold.

The pieces of her body are… melting away.

Everything's falling to pieces.

She is breaking.

Her body is being torn apart by the same clockwork being that created her- and it won't stop. The feeling is unrelentless, and it's getting hard to tell which part of her hurts quite the most when everything feels on fire.

As she tries to cling onto her existence- selfishly, so _selfishly_ \- just a little longer, she is struck with a thought -or perhaps it was more a regret.

She’s afraid to give herself to the voices -she's doesn't want to die. She didn't wake up, didn’t learn how to be a human all over again only to lose her humanity so easily. 

However, in the end, either way, she shouldn't feel scared of this graceful fall into oblivion -because, at the end of her existence, even if it was bound to end like this, she found out what it really means to be 'human.'

And… for the first time in her short, ephimeral existence, she’s wanted something for herself -entirely, with all her heart.

And that's more than enough.

It should be… … more than enough…

…Right?

She feels an almost eerie sense of serenity. There’s a certain _rightness_ to going out this way, she thinks; she was no one in particular to begin with, just a nameless girl who didn’t know when and how to quit when she still had the chance, and soon she will return to that nothingness that she came from once more. Illusions to illusions, dust to dust -because illusions, no matter how many people believe in them, are bound to disappear without a trace.

It’s almost karmic in a way.

 _Close your eyes. Sleep well. May you find peace under the flowers_. The words resonate inside her mind. She feels the embrace of cool water enveloping her, and she feels lightweight. She allows the voices give her peace, and she casts away all regret, all fear, surrendering herself to the darkness.

Sleep.

It sounds much nicer than dying.

There is a sense of falling as she melts away, and it is oddly a complacent moment.

Suddenly, the pain abates until for one, perfect moment, she is finally alone in nothingness.

But the darkness rejects her wish.

_There’s no reason the winner should disappear on achieving perfect victory!_

-But i's far too late

It's too late

She's still-

Her body is-

Already fading…

…And it would be so much easier to let herself just fade away now- back into seafoam-

But-

His voice is still reaching her.

Even in a maze, where the wind doesn’t blow.

Even in a far, distant end of the world.

Even at the bottom of a dark lake-

-she can still hear him above the sound of her own erratic heartbeat.

_If you have no need for her, then I’ll take her._

She closes her eyes as the Moon Cell becomes the dreaming device it once was.

It's sort of funny.

Well, not really.

Because -she’s always thought it would hurt more; falling and dying.

But-

“You _fool_ ; what were you expecting to get from this act of foolishness? Die a hero? Even there should be limits to such reckless obstinacy. The sheer fact that you are alive right now is already your proof of existence, as it is of your worth. From here on to eternity.”

-It’s not that bad now.

Gilgamesh is holding her now, embracing her as if someone was trying to tear her from him, a hold so tight it ought to hurt.

But it… doesn’t.

Everything simply stopped hurting altogether.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, so I was listening to [this absolute gem of a song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eefNPsDAPQk), got myself unintendedly sad over it, then I was overwhelmed by GilHaku feels all over again, and so… here we are? What can I say, I’m sorry for this weird emotional train wreck.


End file.
